


Step One

by deedeeinfj



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 18:23:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deedeeinfj/pseuds/deedeeinfj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben is her colleague and her ally and her friend, and also, she wants to see him naked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Step One

In the end, the most unsettling part of the night isn’t the impromptu wedding or Orin’s creepy staring. It’s the moment she glances across the room, sees Ben smiling at April and Andy, and realizes that she likes him.  _Likes_ him. She doesn’t know when or how that happened.

She knows the exact moment when she decided he wasn’t really a jerk. She remembers his good-natured smile at the “Mean Ben” nickname. During the concert, he had swayed slightly, his hands shoved in his pockets, and it had struck her that he wasn’t cold and stiff, but awkward and dorky. She had later learned from one of her Eagleton spies that Ben paid the fee for Freddy Spaghetti’s rescheduled concert there, too. As they met over the months of government shutdown and budget negotiations, she had seen with increasing clarity how Chris ingratiated himself and let Ben take the heat. Ben wasn’t a jerk. He was straightforward and honest and responsible. He made her life endlessly frustrating, but he wasn’t a jerk.

As friends and family make their wedding speeches, Leslie allows herself more stolen looks at Ben. It isn’t the first time she’s acknowledged his elfin good looks, but it is the first time she imagines kissing him, having his hands on her, losing her fingers in his thick hair, feeling the scrape of his jaw on her skin, and… her face feels hot. She refills her drink.

She knows, of course, the very moment that she started liking him instead of merely tolerating him. She remembers feeling too chilly in her hospital gown, and she remembers that the waffles tasted like heaven even if they had gotten a little lukewarm in transit. His homemade chicken soup, which lovely Ann had reheated for her in the nurse’s lounge, had been as warm and delicious and comforting as a blanket on her throat. Or… whatever the equivalent of a blanket on one’s throat could be. She liked Ben. She liked his smile, his soup, and his commitment to making her Harvest Festival a success, even though it would mean his own defeat. Somewhere along the way, it had become  _their_ Harvest Festival.

If asked, Leslie could also pinpoint the moment when she realized that Ben was her friend. That striking pink sunset, the persistent itch of the bug bite on the side of her neck, the sickening twist of anxiety in her stomach – and an unexpected friend.

But  _this_ , she thinks, watching him as he laughs about something with Tom, where did  _this_  come from? This caring about him and wanting him in every way?

Maybe she’s cared about him for longer than she realizes. She does remember wanting to strangle Ira and The Douche – The Douche and The Douche, in her opinion – when they mocked and humiliated Ben on air, and it wasn’t just because they were giving the Harvest Festival bad press. She remembers wondering how they  _dared_  to belittle someone for having dreams and ambition and talent. And at the festival when he had looked so devastated and broken, calling himself a curse, her heart had ached for him, even while her own hopes for the festival seemed to be headed for the whizz palace. So, yes, she’s cared about him for a long time now. But that’s what friends do, isn’t it?

Wanting to make out with him, however, is  _not_  what friends do… not unless they’re in a dime-a-dozen romantic comedy about friends who realize they want to jump each other. Which is exactly the situation that Leslie finds herself in tonight. Ben is her colleague and her ally and her friend, and also, she wants to see him naked.

She meant what she said earlier in the evening about the careful planning of relationships, so she identifies a first step in her plan: Ben needs to stay in Pawnee. She sees that he’s walking towards her, almost as if he knows there’s a plan to be set in motion. And if there’s one thing she’s taught him, it’s that nothing stands in her way.

She smiles at him.


End file.
